An hour away from beautiful Da Lat City, there is a small farming village called Don Duong where the cheese factory of Pizza 4P's is located.
Every morning, they use freshly produced milk from their partner farms and carefully make each cheese by hand.
Known as "queen of the cheese," Camembert is one of the most popular cheeses in the world. Rich, mild, and buttery. It's meltingly delicious.
Homemade artisan cheeses from Da Lat
Pizza 4P's established their cheese factory in Da Lat in 2011 to supply fresh mozzarella cheeses to its own restaurant. At the beginning, they had to start everything from scratch- from finding a dairy farm to designing the product package. Today, they have more than 20 professional staffs and produce more than 400 cheeses everyday.
Currently, there are two Japanese cheese makers working at their factory. Mr. Konuki is the founder of the factory and is in charge of the daily operation. Mr. Kubota studied cheese making in France for 6 years and received a French national certificate in professional cheese making. After working at a cheese factory in Hokkaido, he joined Pizza 4P's and is currently engaged in new product development.
Under their strict quality control, Pizza 4P's has been producing a wide variety of homemade cheeses that includes Camembert, Mozzarella, Mimolette, and etc.
Best milk makes the best cheese
What's vital to cheese making is fresh, high quality milk.
In early 2011, they started visiting farms in Ho Chi Minh City, Cu Chi, Long Thanh, and many other provinces in Vietnam to find milk for cheeses. In Da Lat, they finally found the milk that they had been looking for: rich, fresh, and well-balanced. To keep the freshness of the milk, they even built a factory 10 minutes away from the farm.
Unlike major dairy companies that buy milk from several farms and mix them together, they carefully select top level farms and buy milk only from them to keep the quality of the products. Also, to ensure the safety of the products, they test the milk and the products at a third party institution in a regular basis.
Currently, for further improvement of the milk quality, they have been working to build their own dairy farm in Da Lat.
Recommended by a 5-star hotel executive chef
"I was very impressed by the quality of cheeses of Pizza 4P's. After tasting some of their products, we immediately switched from the imported cheeses to theirs. It must be very difficult to create cheeses like this from scratch in Vietnam. It's simply admirable," says Mr. Sakal, an Executive Chef of Sofitel Plaza Saigon.
Currently, homemade cheeses of Pizza 4P's have been used not only in its own restaurant, but also in 5 star hotels and restaurants in Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Hanoi, and others.
How to eat Camembert cheese
First of all, to enjoy camembert cheese, it is important to know how it should be preserved and how long it should be aged.
A cheese is a living thing, and like most living things, it needs air to breathe. Allowing it to breath lets it mature and gain a richer and milder flavor. To preserve it properly, wrap it loosely with wax paper and keep it refrigerated. The expiration period of 4P's camembert cheese is 25 days after the production date. The best timing to eat it is around 20 days after the production.
You can eat it as you like, but we recommend to serve it at a room temperature. When it's warmed up, it has richer and more buttery flavor. It's nice to put it on a slice of bread and serve with apples, berries, or grapes. It's a quick and easy appetizer when drinking wine or beer.